Warrior's Angel (The Lost Angels Book 4) (15 page)

Rhiannon looked through the windshield, and her jaw dropped open. She turned to him, her
body pressed up against the door to put distance between them, her expression at once wary and accusatory. “What, were you
listening
to us? Have you been
spying
on me, detective?”

Michael’s eyes widened. “What?”

“This is Giancarlo’s! This is where Angel and I were going to come and eat! There’s no
way
that out of the thousands of restaurants in Manhattan, this just happened to be the one you
coincidentally
chose tonight!”

Michael sighed.

Things
could
go easier than he’d thought they would. Then again, maybe not.

Chapter
Seventeen

“I
wasn’t eavesdropping,” he told her plainly as he put the car in park and extracted the keys from the ignition. “I happen to love this restaurant,” he gestured to the building through the windshield, “and I was hoping you would too. I had no idea you were already planning on coming here.”

The explanation was so simple, so under-detailed, and so straight-forward,
he hoped she would realize that it could only have come from a position of honesty. He wasn’t trying to snow her. If he’d wanted to play her, he’d have done so from the get-go using powers she couldn’t even begin to imagine, and she wouldn’t have stood a chance.

But it did make him smile a little
that just seconds ago, he’d been musing about learning all of her likes and dislikes so he could pretend to share them. As it turned out, pretending wouldn’t have been necessary. At least not where Italian food was concerned.

She stared at him long and hard, and he could almost hear the gears turning in her head. Did she trust him? Did she dare believe him? What were the odds?

What were the odds, indeed? She fought like him, she liked the same food as he did, and she wanted to make the world a better place.

You’d think they
’d been matched up in some angel realm or something.

“On the up side, if you had reservations, then I don’t have to bribe the ma
ître d’ for a decent table at the last minute,” he quipped.

It was still a long while before she spoke, but when she did, it was with a sigh of acceptance. “I did.” She popped open her doo
r and got out. He followed suit.

“By the by, you parked in a handicapped zone.”

“There are three other open spaces. If they fill up, I’ll move.” He clicked the lock on his keypad, locking the doors. “Cop’s prerogative.” Then he clicked the second lock, which would activate the alarm. Unmarked police vehicles had a lot of tempting equipment inside them for anyone angry enough, drunk enough, or the just plain young enough to try something cool like ripping off a cop car. It wasn’t that he couldn’t catch anyone who attempted to steal from him, but alarm came with a bright, red blinking set of lights that usually deterred people from even attempting the theft in the first place, saving him some trouble.

It was a human thing for him to worry about, he knew. But he was like that in a lot of ways. He’d been a cop for a long time, and his job was so entrenched in the ups and downs of basic human nature, they’d seeped through his pores and into his bones.

“If I hadn’t had reservations for Giancarlo’s, I highly doubt you’d have had to bribe anyone, detective,” she said, eyeing him over the top of the car. “I bet you never really have any trouble at all getting what you want at the last minute. I bet that
Jedi Mind Trick
of yours serves you well,
Obi-Wan
.”

“What
Jedi Mind Trick
?”

“The one you used on me at the masquerade gala.”

“I never used anything like a
Jedi Mind Trick
on you at the masquerade gala.”

Rhiannon’s eyes widened at first, and then
they narrowed. And then she smiled.
Got you
, the smile said.

S
hit,
Michael thought, bewildered.
What the hell just happened?
He’d just admitted to being the man in the mask at the dance. Just freely admitted it. Holy hell.
She
should be the cop, not him.

Rhiannon was still smiling that smug, caught-you-red-handed smile when she said, “That’s a real nifty little power you have there, being able to turn things to gold.”

Michael bit the inside of his cheek and eyed her hard. This conversation was both frustrating the heck out of him, and turning him on beyond belief. His gaze slipped to her mouth, and his gut clenched. He wanted to kiss her so badly….

She licked her lips.

His heartbeat sped up.

Her smile broadened.

Michael blinked. She was
playing
with him!

Michael pushed away from the car and took a deep breath
, schooling his senses. Never in his entire existence had he been the one
not
in control of any given conversational exchange with a woman. Until now.

“Ladies first,”
he said, gesturing to the side door of the restaurant.

Rhiannon moved away from the car and approached the door with him. He pulled it open and waited for her to go in, but there, she stopped and turned to face him. They were very close, and Michael could not only smell the shampoo scent of her hair, but her own,
unique scent underneath. His heart thrummed harder in response. “When I was little,” she said softly between them, “a priest told me to ‘turn my back on the devil,’ and I told him that if I ever came across the devil, the last thing I would do is turn my back on him because I would want him right in front of me where I can keep my eye on him.”

“I’m not the devil,” Michael replied, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to keep the secretive, seductive, and admittedly somewhat cruel smile from spreading across his lips.

“No, of course not,” she said, still smiling. “You’re probably an angel.”

She turned away from him then, offering him her back
as she said she would never do, and it took him a moment to pull his big, strong self together enough to follow her into the restaurant.

She was right about one thing. If she hadn’t had reservations, he could easily have procured for them any table they’d wanted, and it would have come with the best service.
The owner of the restaurant was a friend of Michael’s, and Michael was an influential force with the police department. And if that hadn’t been enough, then
yes
. He could have pulled what she’d so eloquently termed the
Jedi Mind Trick
.

But as luck would have it, she did have reservations, and the experienced cop in Michael knew that the more they stuck to doing things the
good, old-fashioned human way, the less tempted he would be to abuse his powers with her.

For some reason,
that had become important to him. It was a new development, it was somewhat surprising, and it had come all of a sudden. But it was what it was.

They managed the privacy of the more or less secluded, admittedly romantic shadows of a corner table.
Michael helped her remove her jacket, a very expensive Burberry Brit number that he knew she used for camouflage, and then he removed his as well and laid them both over the backs of their chairs.

A floating candle
in the shape of an orchid dressed the table in soft, yellow-white light, a basket of various, fresh-baked breads and dipping sauces was set before them by the maître d’, and the waiter was at their side in an instant with the wine list. They ordered a well-aged red, another taste they seemed to have in common. When the waiter left to fulfill their order, Rhiannon laced her fingers over the table and leaned in. “So how do you do it, anyway?”

“Do what?” he asked innocently, even though he knew
good and well that she was referring to the chest filled with gold coins he’d left in her apartment living room.

“
How do you face your job every day when you have the means to do and be anything you want? I may not have figured out exactly what kind of supernatural you are just yet, but I know damned well you don’t have to fight crime for a living. You don’t have to face the pain of what you face all the time. So, how, and
why
, do you do it, detective?”

Michael blinked, once more completely and utterly
taken aback by the woman sitting across from him. He hadn’t been expecting that. He hadn’t figured her out after all.

The waiter came with the wine while Rhiannon was waiting for his response, and he could tell that she could read the surprise in his expression. He waited for their glasses to be filled and for their server to once more leave before he focused on the wine, lifted the glass, and said, “
To changing the world.”

Rhiannon didn’t miss a beat. She smiled as she lifted her glass as well.
“For the better,” she added softly. He nodded in silent agreement, they toasted gently, and each of them took a sip.

“I see,” she said as they set their drinks back down. “So
I’m to believe you do it for altruistic reasons.”

“You’re one to talk, Miss Dante.”

Rhiannon’s smile slipped a little, and she averted her gaze.

“I’d imagine you could very easily find a way to make an extremely comfortable and danger-free living using your powers,” he told her. “Let’s see....” He looked up and pretended to attempt to remember scenes of the gargoyle battle. “If I’m not mistaken, you utilized surprisingly strong telekinesis, manipulated loads of fire in all sorts of interesting manners, and even called lightning from the very skies.” He cocked his head to one side, re-captured her gaze, and added, “Very nice job toning down the noise, by the way. That was especially impressive.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I’d wager the scope of your abilities very nearly rivals my own.”

“I can also heal.”

Michael froze.

A darkness moved through h
im, so heavy it pulled his heart downward and filled his lungs with shadow. “Well then,” he said softly –
so
softly. “You’re one up on me.”

“I know,” she said, her tone also very soft. However, hers was tentative,
not surprised or angry. Her gaze skirted to his left bicep. “I figured that if you could heal, you probably would have mended that back at the studio.”

Michael looked down at his arm. A gash peeked out from beneath his black tee-shirt.
He hadn’t seen it earlier because it had been hidden by his jacket. At some point during their fight, something had slammed into him hard enough to break his skin even while it left the leather of his coat intact.

The wound was not overly bad, but it had bled, leaving dried red in the grooves of his inner elbow. It was several inches long and at least an inch deep, and
looked like it was going to bruise like a mother.

He wondered why his vampirism hadn’t healed it. Had he not fed enough? Or was it something else? Something
about it not being a vampire-related wound like a sunburn? Or something having to do with Samael taking his healing ability away? He still had a little to learn about his current condition.

“I can heal it
,” she offered gently, nervously. “I mean, if you’d like.” Her voice was no more than a whisper now, and when he looked back up to meet her gaze, he realized that she was actually
afraid
to offer such a thing. Not because she thought she couldn’t do it, but because she thought he wouldn’t want her to. Because maybe he was jealous he couldn’t do it himself.

Oh, Rhiannon….

Emotion swirled within him, crazy and strong. So many thoughts chased each other through his head one after another, he was lost in them. He
had
been able to heal once, and had even been nicknamed
The Healer
by his brothers, but the Fallen One had taken that from him. And there
was
anger there, but not at Rhiannon for having an ability he didn’t have, but for the fact that he didn’t have it any longer in the first place. And he couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed the wound until now; Rhiannon was that much of a distraction. Finally, the fact that she was so very weak and yet generous enough to want to heal him –
him
, the man she really didn’t trust as far as she could throw him – was the icing on the amazing cake.

He was completely thrown by her.

The waiter chose that very moment to approach the table. Michael looked up to find that it wasn’t the waiter after all, but the restaurant owner. “Oh dear. Detective, are you quite all right?” He was looking very worriedly at Michael’s wound.

Michael forced himself into control mode.
It took more effort than he would have liked. “It’s fine, Giancarlo, I promise. Just a scratch.”

He pushed out his
chair and stood. As immature as it might have been, rising to his full height gave him a little more air and a much-needed boost of confidence. “I’ll just visit the men’s room and clean it up. If you’ll excuse me.” He nodded to Rhiannon, who smiled shyly back, and then he left the table.

His
archess was unwittingly making him an out-of-control wreck. He was a vampire, a Nightmare, and a goddamned archangel, for crying out loud, and Rhiannon had turned him into a bumbling moron.

Maybe while he was in the restroom, he could not only clean his wound, but locate his balls too. That would be good.